The fox was still watching, thoughts turning over possible angles of restraint—timing, force, leverage—
When it stopped.
Its turquoise eyes narrowed, attention sharpening on instinct alone.
Something was wrong.
The lizard was still eating.
Still tearing into flesh with the same dull, obsessive focus. Still blind, still unresponsive, still swaying faintly as it fed.
But—
The blood.
The steady streams spilling from its eyes had thinned. What had once been a constant, heavy flow was now reduced to sluggish rivulets, dark and slow as they traced uneven paths down its scales. The wounds along its body still gaped, still raw—but they no longer poured freely. Drops fell instead of sheets. Seepage instead of hemorrhage.
The fox didn't move.
It simply stared.
"…Hmn."
The sound was quiet. Thoughtful.
Its gaze sharpened further, sweeping over the lizard's body with renewed scrutiny.
The injuries weren't healed. Not even close. Torn flesh still hung open, scales remained cracked and broken, blood still stained its form.
But the frantic bleeding—
It's slowing.
The fox's eyes flicked briefly to the corpse beneath the lizard, then back to the wounds themselves.
So eating *is* doing something.
Not regeneration—nothing that clean. Nothing controlled. The flesh wasn't knitting together, the damage wasn't reversing.
But something inside it had stabilized.
The fox's ears twitched once.
Its body remembered.
Not how to heal properly—but how to *not die*.
A crude response. Inefficient. Dangerous. But enough to slow the loss. Enough to buy time.
The fox remained still, studying the lizard anew.
"…So that's it," it murmured quietly.
Even half-blind. Even barely conscious. Even drowning in instinct—
It was adapting.
Slowly.
Brutally.
Its gaze didn't soften.
If anything, it grew more wary.
Because this wasn't recovery.
This was the kind of survival that let a creature keep moving long after it *should* have collapsed.
And that made what came next…
More complicated.
The fox did not move.
It stood where it was, turquoise eyes fixed on the lizard as moments stretched into silence. No warning. No command. No interference.
It simply watched.
The lizard continued to eat.
Slowly. Methodically. Piece by piece, it reduced the Elder One's corpse to nothing. Flesh vanished. Bone was crushed and swallowed. Even the remnants that should have remained—scraps, fragments, marrow—were consumed without pause.
Eventually, there was nothing left.
Only a dark pool of blood soaking into the shattered ground… and a tangle of ruined robes, torn and abandoned.
{System}
Gained 4500 evolution points.
The lizard stepped away.
It stood beside the remains, posture steadier now, and dragged its tongue once along its maw, licking away the last traces of blood.
The fox's eyes narrowed slightly.
The bleeding had stopped.
Completely.
No more crimson spilling from its eyes. No fresh blood seeping from its wounds. The injuries were still there—torn flesh, cracked scales—but they no longer looked raw. No longer fresh. The edges had darkened, hardened, as though the damage had already begun to settle.
The fox still did not move.
It stared.
So that's it.
Understanding clicked into place with cold clarity.
That's why it wouldn't stop eating—even while bleeding out.
It hadn't been ignoring its injuries.
It had been treating them.
Crude. Brutal. Inefficient by any civilized standard—but effective.
That's how it healed before.
The same way.
The fox's gaze sharpened as memory aligned with observation.
Back then… when it recovered unnaturally fast. When wounds that should have taken days faded in hours. When it had ignored pain, danger—everything else—until it had finished feeding.
That wasn't recklessness.
That was instinctive medicine.
The fox's ears flicked once.
And that's why it didn't listen to me.
Because as far as it was concerned… it already *was* tending to its wounds.
Just not in a way I recognized.
The fox remained motionless, turquoise eyes locked on the lizard as this new understanding settled in.
This creature didn't heal by stopping.
It healed by consuming.
The fox continued to stare at the lizard, expression unreadable.
It should have at least *indicated* that was what it was doing.
A simple sign. A pause. Anything.
Instead, it had looked like nothing more than a mindless creature intent on eating itself to death.
The fox's ears flicked again, irritation surfacing faintly.
I thought the only thing it knew how to do was eat—until it collapsed.
A needless conclusion.
Its gaze sharpened briefly as the thought carried through.
If I'd gone through with restraining it… if I'd forced it to stop—
The fox exhaled slowly.
That would have been… awkward.
Interfering with the only process keeping it alive. Pinning it down while its body was actively stabilizing itself. Forcing a solution it neither needed nor understood.
At best, it would have been unnecessary.
At worst, it could have made things worse.
Its tails stilled.
Fortunately, that isn't what happened.
The fox's gaze remained fixed on the lizard, a faint tension easing from its posture as the realization fully settled.
It hadn't been reckless.
It hadn't been suicidal.
It had simply been doing the only thing it knew how to do.
And it had worked.
The fox finally exhaled.
A slow breath, released through its nose, tension easing just enough to be noticeable.
"…Alright."
The word was quiet—spoken more to itself than to anything else.
The pouch hanging at its neck pulsed faintly, its surface glowing as Qi flowed into it. The light flickered once… then twice.
With a soft hum, it opened.
Another pouch drifted free.
This one was different—older, rougher. Dark stains of dried blood mottled its surface, the fabric worn thin in places. It hovered in the air before the fox, suspended by invisible threads of Qi.
The fox glanced at the lizard.
Then spoke, voice calm and deliberate.
"Here."
Its will pushed outward.
The pouch shot forward, gliding low across the broken ground before reaching the lizard. The Qi supporting it dissipated at the last moment.
The pouch dropped.
It struck the ground at the lizard's feet with a dull thud.
The fox did not move closer.
It simply watched—turquoise eyes steady, posture relaxed but ready—
Waiting to see whether the lizard would understand this gesture any better than it had understood words.